The Second Circuit on Tuesday affirmed a lower court's decision to toss Truman Capital Advisors LP's claims that a unit of mortgage service Nationstar Mortgage Holdings Inc. wrongfully killed a $150 million deal when it scrapped an auction of residential loan pools backing certain securities.

Speaking to a packed house in a New York City bookstore Monday night, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., responded to reports that America’s unhappily-regulated financial industry was threatening to pull campaign funding from Democrats in Congress by telling the banks to “bring it on.”

Law360's Rising Stars recognizes attorneys under 40 who have demonstrated outstanding career accomplishments. This year, King & Spalding LLP and Sidley Austin LLP led the pack with seven Rising Stars each, followed by Gibson Dunn and Sullivan & Cromwell LLP with six Rising Stars each, and Jones Day and Kirkland & Ellis LLP with five Rising Stars apiece.

Capital One NA has agreed to pay $4.4 million to resolve a proposed class action lawsuit alleging that borrowers who had vehicles repossessed and sold at auction were given deficient notices regarding the sales in violation of Maryland law, according to documents filed in Maryland federal court Monday.

Two relators in a False Claims Act row involving Taylor Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Corp. and Home America Mortgage Inc. have hit back at their former counsel’s claim to fees stemming from a $320 million settlement, urging a Georgia federal judge to invalidate a lien on their share of the deal.

Attorneys who won a $203 million judgment against Wells Fargo NA for reordering customers’ debit transactions to maximize overdraft fees can’t point to “subjective” information to justify their $51 million fee request as the parties enter limited discovery related to the disputed fees, a California federal judge ruled Friday.

The Eleventh Circuit on Monday affirmed a Florida district court’s decision to shield the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from a negligence lawsuit by two victims of Robert Allen Stanford’s $7 billion Ponzi scheme, saying the lower court correctly applied exceptions in the Federal Tort Claims Act.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Monday launched an enforcement action against a California debt collection firm that the bureau says used its connection to law enforcement agencies to improperly threaten debtors with jail time if they did not pay up on bounced checks.

Sullivan & Cromwell LLP’s Diane McGimsey has become one of the firm’s key partners for handling complex litigation, with successes ranging from defending investment firm Thomas Weisel Partners LLC to coordinating JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s defense in a host of mortgage cases, making her one of three attorneys under 40 honored by Law360 as a rising legal star in banking.

A major Swiss bank agreed to pay $211 million to the U.S. government to avoid prosecution for helping U.S. citizens create secret accounts and access cash using code words, the U.S. Department of Justice said Monday.

Russia, Egypt and Finland on Monday became the latest countries to announce their intentions to join the China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, according to statements from China’s Ministry of Finance, following Australia and Denmark, which announced their intention to sign on this weekend.

A New York federal judge on Monday sentenced Bank of Montreal’s former lead natural gas options trader to time served and ordered him to pay $14.2 million in restitution for secretly inflating the value of his trading positions.

A New York federal judge on Friday granted a request by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to order two former McGinn Smith & Co. brokers accused of a $126 million investment scheme to pay more than $99 million back to investors, and also tapped numerous assets from which to draw the funds.

An attorney for an ex-Wells Fargo employee accused of insider trading fired back at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission during opening arguments of the agency's administrative suit on Monday, saying the agency's narrative of the alleged events doesn't add up.

An Illinois federal judge on Friday sent to arbitration a proposed class action targeting Cashcall Inc. for allegedly funding and servicing usurious loans issued by Native American owned-Western Sky Financial Inc., concluding the issue of whether the defendants' arbitration agreement is valid and enforceable could be resolved in that forum.

State-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Co. said on Monday said that it had inked new, $10 billion loan agreement with a syndicate of 27 international commercial banks, a move that the world’s largest oil exporter says will help it maintain financial flexibility.

An Illinois federal judge has dismissed a suit against Standard & Poor’s and Moody's over their residential mortgage-backed securities ratings during and before the financial crisis, saying the suit was not brought in time to meet a five-year statute of limitations.

Expert Analysis

As recent settlements demonstrate, regulators will focus on the nuts and bolts of Bank Secrecy Act/anti-money laundering compliance programs, including how transactions are monitored, how information is shared, and what controls are in place to detect, escalate and report suspicious activity, says Olivia Radin of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.

Creditors subject to the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and Regulation B should proceed with caution when requiring a guarantee. This guidance will apply with even greater force if the U.S. Supreme Court, in Hawkins v. Community Bank of Raymore, disagrees with the Eighth Circuit and finds that Regulation B’s expansive definition of “applicant” is a permissible interpretation of the ECOA, say attorneys with Ballard Spahr LLP.

Many mediation orders state that attendees must have “full settlement authority” without providing clarity as to what that term actually means. Attendance by just outside counsel or a corporate spokesperson is not enough, even if someone else with full settlement authority is just a phone call or keystroke away, say Douglas Flaum and Kevin Broughel of Paul Hastings LLP.

With some analysts expecting the crude oil forward price curve to dive into steep contango soon, depending on the rates of production decrease, demand increase and storage availability, this will cause cash-strapped oil and gas companies to explore transactions that are a blend of hedging and financing, says Jeffrey Nichols of Haynes and Boone LLP.

A recent Southern District of New York ruling — bringing Madoff Ponzi scheme victims one step closer to recovery from Citco and PricewaterhouseCoopers — serves as a cautionary reminder to service providers to funds. They ought to be mindful that, even in the absence of contractual privity with investors, their acts and omissions can result in liability to those third parties, say Jonathan Sablone and Christine Vargas Colmey of Nixon Peabody LLP.

For reliance material that is not admitted on the stand, consider bolstering the testimony by having the expert describe the evidence generally, but in a way that signals to the jury that the expert has a strong foundation of supporting facts and data. If done well, such testimony can open the door to admitting the evidence, say Jason McDonell and Heather Fugitt of Jones Day.

Because there is currently a very robust market for distressed debt, a lender's first option for dealing with any nonperforming loan is often to look to sell the loan. However, the pool of potential buyers for low-income housing tax credit loans will likely consist only of strategic buyers, says Mark Bossi, co-chairman of Thompson Coburn LLP's financial restructuring group.

Suggestions that regulators are distancing themselves from Operation Choke Point and will be more restrained in holding banks accountable are nice but may not prove to be accurate. While the culture is shifting at the federal banking agencies, expect vigorous continued civil and criminal prosecutions, say Barkley Clark of Stinson Leonard Street LLP and Barbara Clark of Commercial Law Institute.

If a “Lehman-like” collapse were to happen again tomorrow or if a central clearing counterparty becomes insolvent, it is questionable whether regulators would glean useful insights from the costly and far-reaching reporting requirements imposed on the derivatives market by the European Market Infrastructure Regulation, say attorneys with Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.